Social networking threatens UK jury system

Lord Judge – the Lord Chief Justice who certainly has a very fitting name – has come down hard on social networking sites and the Internet in general, regarding trials in the UK.

He claims that widespread use of the net and the likes of Facebook and Twitter by jurors is threatening to undermine the impartiality of British courts.

How does that figure, you may well ask. Basically, jurors involved in some trials have been researching the case on the Internet, and drawing their own conclusions from external sources which may be wholly unreliable.

And perhaps worse still is the threat social networks and mobile phones pose from the court room. Lord Judge warned it was a possibility that jury members could be influenced by avalanches of tweets organised by those campaigning in favour of a defendant.

According to the Press Association, Lord Judge stated: “We cannot stop people tweeting, but if jurors look at such material, the risks to the fairness of the trial will be very serious, and ultimately the openness of the trial process on which we all rely would be damaged.”

“We have to remember that tweets stay on the Internet and to allow court-based tweeting is likely to increase the potential for prejudicial material regarding a defendant or a witness to become available on the Internet. We welcome advances in technology, provided that we are its masters and it is our tool and servant.”

Lord Judge believes that for the jury system to continue successfully, jurors need to be warned about abusing the Internet in relation to a trial. Indeed, online research on a trial could be deemed contempt of court.

He also floated the idea of banning any kind of text messages from being sent from within court buildings.